


two wrongs (they never make a right)

by connorswhisk



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, had a lot of fun with this, two-face my man my problematic fave, up to interpretation tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29710110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connorswhisk/pseuds/connorswhisk
Summary: Harvey Dent falls in love with Bruce Wayne in his junior year of university.Two-Face becomes obsessed with Batman some ten years later, when Harvey is all but gone.Either way, there's no chance. He can't decide if it's good for him or not - can't choose between Harvey, Two-Face, and all the things that they stand for - Harvey, Two-Face, Harvey, Two-Face, Harvey -Like all other choices, the coin will decide what’s best.
Relationships: (Implied?), Harvey Dent/Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent/Selina Kyle, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	two wrongs (they never make a right)

**Author's Note:**

> yeah idk what canon this is - some of it's from the harleen comics run, most of it is my own shit - buckle up, 'cause it's a lot.
> 
> also, listened to the song burden in my hand by soundgarden a lot while writing this. definitely has harvey vibes in a certain way, would recommend
> 
> anyway. this fic is dedicated to julian and veronica. thanks for keeping up with my bullshit, guys :') <444

It’s a clear night in Gotham City, which means it’s a night prime for a robbery.

Clear skies make it easier to spot the Bat. Spotting the Bat is significantly better than not spotting the Bat.

He loads each of his guns with bullets, one and then the other. He makes sure that none of his henchmen are having second thoughts, and if they are, he flips on them. He checks that the coin is safely tucked away in his pocket.

He wouldn’t want to lose it.

He goes to open the truck’s side door, and catches sight of a puddle pooled next to the curb, a remnant from yesterday’s rains, trickling lazily down through the grate of the storm drain and into the sewers.

He sees Harvey Dent.

**He sees Two-Face.**

He sees them both, **blurred together,** impossible to tell where **one starts** and the other ends.

He sees neither of them. Nothing. Just a reflection of a man, a man with scars.

He wasn’t always like this.

“Boss? Boss, are you coming?”

He stares at the puddle. The puddle stares back. Unblinking. Emotionless. Bare.

“Boss?”

“ **Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’,** ” he growls. He spits at the pool of water, and it lands somewhere off-center, marring the image of his face even further than it’s already been marred, and sending ripples coursing across its surface.

He opens the passenger side door, and steps into the truck.

“You doin’ all right, Boss?”

“ **I’m _fine,_ Louie,**” he snaps. “ **Just start the fuckin’ car, will you?** ”

Louie holds his hands up in defense. “Ok, ok,” he says, turning the key in the ignition.

Two-Face fingers the coin in his pocket, and thinks about when Harvey used to be in charge.

He wasn’t always like this.

— — —

Harvey Dent falls in love with Bruce Wayne in his junior year of university.

He’d already known who Bruce was, of course - _everyone_ knew the Waynes, the richest people in Gotham, some of the richest people in the _world,_ really. Almost everyone remembered Thomas and Martha, but even more knew Bruce, the young orphan, the philanthropist, the always-seeming-to-be-in-some-sort-of-trouble rebellious and strikingly handsome young go-getter.

Harvey had grown up hearing his father curse the Wayne name under his breath, for one reason or another that Harvey was never quite sure of.

The whole city had made a fuss when Bruce had announced he would be attending college. The application and attendance rates for Gotham U soared.

Harvey’s not in any of his classes - doesn’t even know what he’s studying or majoring in - but he doesn’t care. Sure, Bruce is nice to look at, but he’s air-headed. A rich pretty boy, full of himself. None of Harvey’s concern.

And then it happens like this: Harvey’s making his way across the quad in the middle of the day, not really paying attention to where he’s going, looking over the notes he’d just taken in his lecture on white collar corporate crime and muttering under his breath, when he runs smack dab into somebody, his books and papers go flying, and the somebody’s iced coffee spills all over his last clean white shirt.

“Shit!” Harvey swears, just as the somebody says, “Fuck, are you ok?”

Harvey looks up and swallows. “You’re - You’re Bruce Wayne.”

Wayne grins lopsidedly, showing off his bright white teeth. “That’s me.”

“Shit,” Harvey says again. “I’m sorry, man, I wasn’t watching where I was going - “

“Don’t apologize to _me,_ ” Wayne says, still smiling. “If anything, I should apologize to _you_ for getting coffee all over you.”

Harvey glances down at his now brown button-up. “Yeah. I mean - it’s fine. It was an accident.”

“Still,” Wayne says. “I feel like I should make it up to you. Can I buy you lunch?”

Harvey’s brain takes a moment to process this. Bruce Wayne, multi-billionaire and one of the wealthiest people on the entire planet, is asking him out to lunch after spilling his drink all down Harvey’s front. On a college campus. That they both attend.

That, and it’s been a minute since someone this attractive has asked Harvey to a meal.

But he shouldn’t get ahead of himself. This is _Bruce Wayne,_ and Harvey’s got a 1:30 class to make.

So, naturally, he says, “Yeah, ok,” like an idiot.

Wayne grins again. “What’s your name, friend?”

“Harvey. Harvey Dent.”

Wayne’s shake is firm, but steady. “Nice to meet you, Harvey.”

“Same to you, Mr. Wayne,” Harvey fires back.

“Please. Call me Bruce.”

“All right… _Bruce._ ”

And that’s really the beginning of the end for Harvey.

But maybe that was really when his father got pissed because Harvey forgot to buy milk, and beat him so badly, he had to go the hospital. Maybe that was really when the landlady evicted them after Harvey failed to get the rent to her for too long, and they spent two months out on the streets. Maybe that was really when his father downed glass after glass of beer at the bar, got in his truck to drive home, and killed himself and a family of four at an intersection.

More likely, it was when Claudia Rivera immigrated from San Juan to Gotham City, fell for a down-on-his-luck drunk named Lloyd Dent, accidentally got pregnant, and died giving birth to her son.

More likely, it was really then, before Harvey was even born, that he was doomed to fall.

“What do you want to do?” Bruce asks him that first day over lunch, at some swanky café in uptown Gotham that Harvey’s never heard of before.

“What, you mean like, what’s my major?” Harvey asks, sipping the best Arnold Palmer he’s ever tasted in his life, ensuring not to spill a drop on the clean new shirt Bruce had given him. Not loaned. _Given_ him. He’s rich enough to not miss clothing if he doesn’t need to.

Bruce laughs. “Not exactly. I mean, what do you want to _do?_ ”

“Ah.” Harvey stirs the ice cubes in his glass with his straw, considering.

**You already know the answer. You’ve known since you were six years old, so spit it out already.**

“I want to help this city,” he says. “I want to make it right.”

Bruce nods slowly. “I can understand that.”

Harvey leans back in his seat. “Well, what about you? What do _you_ want to do?”

Bruce is silent for a moment, and then he says, dark skin aglow, “I want to do the same exact thing.”

That’s the day they click together. And then they don’t really separate after that - through classes and frat parties and midterms and girlfriends and breakups and finals, through keggers and one-night stands and arguments and all-nighters - Bruce Wayne is at a place, and Harvey Dent is at that place, too, faithful without even realizing it, because who wouldn’t want to be faithful to Bruce Wayne, so much more than what he seems?

Somewhere along the line, Harvey realizes he’s in love. He wonders if he should tell Bruce. How he would react.

One night in senior year, he almost does. They’re drunk, sprawled out on Harvey’s bed, and the lights are low, and Harvey’s tongue is heavy with booze, and he looks at Bruce, whose eyes are shut peacefully, a smile on his face, and he -

“Got something you wanna say, Harv?” Bruce asks sleepily.

Harvey’s jaw unsticks. “I - “

**Don’t.**

He stops, swallows. “Hang on a sec.”

He reaches across the bed to his bedside table for something - a spare bit of change, a quarter.

He flips.

“Harv?”

**Should’ve used Dad’s old screwball coin. Then things could have _really_ gotten interesting.**

“Never mind,” Harvey mutters, and puts the quarter back, tails side up. “It’s nothing.”

They don’t ever really talk about their pasts, but the words pass between them, anyway, like unseen ships in the night. Harvey knows about Bruce’s parents and his lonely mansion. Bruce knows about Harvey’s father and his medication that he forgets to take half the time.

They’re both orphans, and they don’t like to acknowledge it.

**Who would want to fucking acknowledge _loneliness?_**

— — —

The coin is a coin, but it isn’t _his_ coin. It’s just _the_ coin, its own separate entity, belonging to no one.

The coin has been around for as long as he can remember, but the first real memory of it that he can recall is an old one, hardly there at all and foggy in his brain.

He’s four - no, five - years old, and the ice cream truck has stopped on his street. This is a first. This is special. The ice cream truck almost never comes down this way, where the people are needier and the spirits are low. Not for the poor children, it doesn’t.

So when it _does_ come one day, Harvey gets excited. All the other kids are running out with fistfuls of dollar bills clenched in their hands, Trina from apartment 9B, Janiyah from the building across the road, Miguel from the playground. Harvey wants to go with them. Harvey wants to buy himself a big cone of half-vanilla, half-chocolate, or a cherry-flavored popsicle.

Only problem is, Harvey doesn’t have any money, so he’s gotta ask Dad for some.

Even though it’s one of Gotham City’s fairly rare bright and sunny days, the blinds in the Dent apartment are drawn, and the lights are off. Harvey has to wait a second after stepping through the door for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, blinking the indiscernible black blobs into clearer shapes, a chair, a table, a kitchen stove. Dad’s in the living room recliner like usual, the only light coming from the crackly TV, empty beer cans littering the floor around him, head resting on his chest.

It’s a Sunday, so Dad doesn’t have to work. Though, in truth, he doesn’t always work when it’s _not_ Sunday, either.

“Dad?” Harvey says quietly, tentatively reaching out to prod at his father’s shoulder with two fingers. “Dad, wake up.”

He only mumbles something in his sleep and turns his head to the side, so Harvey shakes him a little harder and says, louder, “ _Daaaaaaaaad._ Dad!”

His father jerks awake, eyelids drooping. He looks confused for a moment, lost, and then his eyes land on Harvey, standing there in the blue artificial light of the television’s glow, and he scowls, pushing himself up.

“What d’you want?” he asks, wiping drool from his chin with the back of his hand.

“There’s an ice cream truck outside,” Harvey says happily. “All the other kids are gonna buy some ice cream. Can I please have some money for some, too?”

His father only looks at him. “What have I told you about wakin’ me up when I’m sleepin’, Harv?”

Harvey casts his gaze downwards at his sneakers, abashed. “I know you don’t like it, Dad. But I had to. The truck is gonna leave soon.”

“And I _told you_ never to wake me up when I’m _sleepin’,_ ” Dad growls, getting to his feet. Harvey shrinks back. “I need my rest, Harv. If you were a good son, you’d respect that.”

“No,” Harvey whimpers. “No, I _am_ good, Dad. I - I just wanted to ask you for some money…”

Dad stops, and Harvey wonders if it’s over. But then his father grins, sleazily and drunkenly and false, turns his back on his son, and walks over to the dresser by the door.

“You want money?” he says. “I’ll _give_ you money.”

He returns with something concealed inside his fist. “Any idea what this is?” he asks.

Harvey shakes his head.

The fingers uncurl, revealing a shining silver circle, flat on the palm of his hand. “This is an old coin that my father used to own,” he says. “And it was his father’s before him. Do you wanna know what it does, Harv?”

Harvey swallows. “It…It pays for things?”

Dad snorts humorlessly. “Nah. It makes decisions for you. When you’re not sure what to do, you use the coin, and it helps you choose.”

Harvey says nothing, just stares at the head of the woman engraved on the side of the coin facing the ceiling, and wonders, vaguely, where his mother is.

“So here’s the deal.” His father holds the coin between his index finger and his thumb. “I’m gonna flip this, and if it lands on tails, I’ll give you the money, and you can go get your fuckin’ ice cream. But if it lands on heads, you _don’t_ get your money, you _don’t_ get your ice cream, and _I_ get to do what _I_ want.”

Harvey still says nothing, but his stomach squirms.

Dad tosses the coin, catches it in his hand, and turns it onto his arm.

“ _Ooh,_ ” he hisses. “ _Too bad, son._ ”

Harvey looks blankly down at the woman on the coin for half a second, and then cringes away as the blows start to rain down on him.

By the time Dad is finished with him, the ice cream truck is long gone, Harvey’s playful Sunday with it.

The coin is brought out many times after that, always flashing menacingly in whatever light there is to catch on it, always big and silver in Harvey’s father’s hand, and always, _always_ coming up heads. _You don’t want to let me change the channel from cartoons so I can watch the game? Let’s let the coin decide what to do with you. You say that you don’t like sausage on pizza, and pick it off every time we order? Go get the coin, son. You wanna know where my paycheck is, so you can use it to pay the rent? I don’t know, Harv. Why don’t we ask the coin? Tails, you win. Heads, you lose._

Years later, after Lloyd Dent is finally dead and gone from the Earth, Harvey finds the coin while cleaning out the apartment. He takes one look at it, shimmering in a filtered ray of sunlight, slowly turns it over, and confirms what he’d managed to deduce himself a long time ago - tails isn’t an option on the coin, and never has been.

Harvey remembers chucking it into a box of junk to throw out, but later, he slips his hand into his pocket and discovers it there, closes his fingers around the cold metal and its cold power. He finds himself using other coins - not _the_ coin, but other coins, ones with both proper heads _and_ tails - to make simple decisions for himself, what to order at restaurants, what brew of coffee to buy.

Sometimes, when you only have two options, it’s best to have an impartial judge.

**Even later down the line, Two-Face uses the coin his father had used so often to make much larger and more meaningful choices. It isn’t _his_ coin, no matter what others may think - it’s _the_ coin, stronger and bigger than he is. He’s just a surrogate for its often harsh settlements.**

**Despite all of his faults, Lloyd Dent had understood that, as well. It wasn’t _his_ coin, either. Nor was it his father’s. It has always been, and will always be, _the_ coin, belonging to no one.**

**Because fate is fate, and it has no master.**

— — —

When Harvey graduates from law school, he gets a place near the center of the city. The rent’s a little steep, and for the first month, his apartment carries an unpleasant smell of cats, but once he lets it air out for a bit, it isn’t all that bad. He’s close to the courthouse, there’s a Dairy Queen just down the street, and he’s far away from where he grew up, which is probably most important of all.

There’s nothing for him there anymore except bad memories.

Bruce stays at Wayne Manor. After university, he’d globe-trotted for a while with Alfred, but he’d come back in the end, and he’d invited Harvey over for lunch and gifted him a large book of currency from all the countries he’d visited: Malaysia, Belgium, New Zealand, Nigeria, too many to count, and all definitely costing more money than Harvey’s ever had in his life.

“This is amazing,” Harvey had muttered, holding a shining Argentine peso up to the light. “Thank you, Bruce.”

Bruce had nodded. “Of course.”

“There are no bills,” Harvey had said softly, running his hands over the book’s leather cover. “Only coins.”

“I know,” Bruce had responded, equally as quiet.

Harvey hadn’t said anything else, but he’d ached in a way he couldn’t quite figure how to put into words.

**Only coins, is it some sort of sick joke -**

No. No, it’s thoughtful.

He thinks.

“Don’t you wanna go somewhere other than Gotham?” Harvey had asked Bruce once. “Another city, another country, another _place?_ Anywhere else?”

Bruce had smiled, and his smile had been tight and puzzling. “Gotham is my home,” he’d said, and Harvey hadn’t pried any further.

But Harvey is glad Bruce never decides to leave, because he doesn’t want to miss him in the way he knows he would if Bruce _did_ go. Harvey can’t clean up this city without him. He can’t help the people of Gotham without him. He can’t -

He _needs_ Bruce. Needs him in a way a coin needs its shine, a gun needs its bullets, needs him to the point where it might be a little unhealthy, and he’s aware of it, but can’t do anything to stop it.

Bruce is known for being a womanizer, as any other rich bachelor on the planet is, but he never marries. He keeps up a steady stream of reporters and journalists and lady tennis players, but he doesn’t settle down with any of them. None of them seem to stick around for more than a month, and Bruce never seems to miss them all too much. It hurts Harvey, it always has, to watch Bruce leave a college party with a giggling girl draped over his arm, to see him at charity balls and auctions with blondes, brunettes, redheads, and every type of woman in between.

But he bears it. Bruce sleeps with who he wants to sleep with, and if that person isn’t Harvey? That’s his choice. That’s fine.

**That’s fine.**

None of the women Bruce dates ever seem to stick around for more than a month, and then one _does._ Harvey imagines he’ll hate her.

But he doesn’t.

“Harv!” Bruce graciously breaks Harvey’s attention from Commissioner Gordon, who’s spent the whole night talking about all the criminals neither Harvey nor the Batman has managed to lock up yet. Gordon is a good man, and Harvey gets on with him (he has to, really), but he can be a bit of a drag, only ever wanting to talk about police-work and where Harvey’s failed, not where he’s succeeded.

Harvey almost wants to tell him, _I’m working on it, all right? Would you just_ ** _lay off for five seconds, you pig-headed son of a -_**

“Harvey,” Bruce says again, grinning and shaking his hand. “Commissioner.” Gordon grunts, nods, and walks away. “Harv, I want you to meet Selina Kyle. Selina, the man of honor.”

Harvey shakes his head and smiles, speaking to the dark-skinned woman on Bruce’s arm as he takes her hand. “Don’t listen to him, I’m not all that. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Kyle.”

Her shake is firm, her eyes hooded. “Likewise. Though I don’t think Bruce is exaggerating, Mr. _District Attorney._ ”

Harvey feels a little shiver travel throughout his body. He’s still getting used to the title - _District Attorney -_ still getting used to the power, still getting used to the fact that he _won._ The election is _his._

It’s…It’s been a lot to take in.

And he really has Bruce to thank for it all. Which he’s done, many times, but Bruce always waves it away.

Sometimes, he can be infuriating, but even then, Harvey wants to spend the rest of his life with him.

“So,” Harvey says conversationally. “How did you two meet?”

“It’s kind of a funny story,” Kyle purrs. “But much too long to tell here. I don’t want to take up too much of your celebration time, Apollo.”

“Please, call me Harvey,” he tells her, flushing at the nickname like he always does, though Kyle had seemed to use it as more of a cocky jab than a loving moniker (and he’s been called worse things, much worse). “Any friend of Bruce’s is a friend of mine.”

He means it, but it burns like acid to voice it.

“Of course,” she says, and - if Harvey’s not mistaken, which he probably is, and he’s probably had a little too much champagne to drink - her eyes flicker briefly up and down his body. “Bruce, I’m going to get us some more refreshments. I’ll be back.”

Both of them stare after her retreating figure, her gently swaying hips, her independent attitude. Harvey’s met a lot of people in his lifetime, but he doesn’t think he’s ever encountered anyone quite like this woman.

Bruce sighs. “She’s great, isn’t she, Harv?”

Harvey hums. “Seems to be. She’ll be gone by next month, I assume?”

Bruce shakes his head, eyebrows drawn tight in thought. “I’m honestly not sure that she will. I feel a real _connection_ with her - have ever since I first met her. Almost like - “ He smiles. “How I did with you, the day _we_ met.”

Harvey ignores the swoop that passes through his stomach at the comparison, and asks, “How _did_ you meet each other, anyway?”

“Selina’s right, it’s too long of a story,” Bruce says flippantly, and Harvey sort of gets the sense that he’s not telling him everything on purpose. “Let’s just say we…we found each other through work.”

“I’ve got time,” Harvey says good-naturedly, his interest piqued. He reaches into his pants pocket, produces the coin. “What do you say we flip on it? Heads, you tell me. Tails, I won’t bother asking anymore. Come on, for old time’s sake.”

Bruce laughs. “You and I both know there’s no chance of me winning. That coin’s got no heads.”

He laughs some more, but it isn’t funny.

“ **I know that,** ” Harvey growls. “ **I fucking know that, Bruce.** ”

Bruce stares at him. “Hey. You feeling all right?”

Harvey shakes his head, clears his brain. The spots spiral out of his vision. He rubs a hand over his forehead. “…Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Bruce looks concerned. He lays a hand on Harvey’s shoulder. “You remembered to take your medication today, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Harvey mutters, closing his eyes, the beginnings of a headache starting to form. “I took it, honestly, Bruce.”

“I believe you.” The hand leaves, and Harvey longs for its return. “I feel like this has been happening more and more often recently - maybe you should ask Doctor Abebe if she can up your dosage.”

“No,” Harvey says. “No, it’s - it’s ok. I’m really fine, Bruce.” He shoves the coin back down into his pocket, offers a shaky smile. “Sorry about that.”

Bruce says nothing, but the worry doesn’t leave his face.

**He hates being worried about.**

“So,” Harvey stammers, in a desperate grab for a subject change. Over by the drinks table, he can see Kyle in conversation with a red-haired woman bedecked in an extravagant pearl necklace. “The Batman.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “The Batman?”

They’ve had this discussion before, briefly, many times - but there’s always more to add to it, and it’s always a topic of interest, with anyone. An easy segue back into normal discussion for the citizens of Gotham City.

Harvey shrugs, clears his throat. “I mean - any idea on who he might be? I know some of the cops down at the precinct have a betting pool going, but I doubt anyone’ll win.” He snorts. “Some of them think it’s _me._ ”

“Why not?” Bruce asks. “DA, Gotham’s golden boy, savior of the city - you check all the boxes, Harv.”

Harvey rolls his eyes. “Right,” he says. “As if _I’d_ turn to vigilantism over the law.”

Bruce laughs. “I guess not.”

Harvey laughs too. “I think it’s more likely to be _you_ than me,” he says. “You’ve got the money, and the brains.”

Bruce stops laughing. “So do you,” he says quietly.

Harvey shakes his head. “Not like you do.”

There’s a moment then, where Bruce has this look on his face, and Harvey feels as if he almost realizes something - and then Kyle returns with two glasses of champagne, and the moment passes, leaving Harvey to wonder if he’d merely imagined it.

“Sorry for the hold-up,” she says, giving a drink to Bruce. “Lots of chatty people here tonight.”

“Only the best for the new DA,” Bruce says, downing his glass in one go and resting it on the tray of a passing server, then offering his hand. “Would you care to dance, Selina?”

She smiles, finishes her own drink. “Not at all.”

Bruce winks at Harvey. “I’ll see you later, Harv.”

Harvey nods. “It was nice to meet you, Miss Kyle.”

“Selina.”

“Selina.”

The corners of her lips quirk up, slyly, almost seductively. Her fingers toy at a gleaming string of pearls around her neck that Harvey is almost certain she hadn’t been wearing before. “The same to you, Harvey.”

They leave for the dance floor. Harvey rubs his thumb over the coin in his pocket and wonders, thinking about bats and cats and courthouses, handsome, smiling men and beautiful, mysterious women, Gotham and the criminals running its streets right at this moment, right now, while he, the newly-elected District Attorney, stands by himself at a party, a little bit tipsy, a little bit confused, and burns.

He has another two glasses of champagne, and calls it a night. Says his goodbyes. Answers his last questions for the remaining members of the press. Retires to his bedroom, and passes out almost immediately.

He wakes up the next morning with a slight headache and the news that the Joker has escaped from Arkham Asylum. Again.

Harvey sighs, grabs the coin off his bedside table, and goes to work.

— — —

The first thing that he registers is the beeping.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._ A constant, steady tempo, clicking in perfect time like a metronome, slicing directly through the air and into his brain.

The second thing that he registers is the pain.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he moans, voice raspy from disuse. His body feels like it’s burning alive, so much so that his eyes water over and stream gentle tears down his cheeks. “ ** _Fuck._** ”

He lifts a hand to the left side of his face, where it hurts the worst, and gingerly feels out the gauze wrapped around it.

His breath catches. His jaw steels, twinges slightly. The beeping speeds up.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

“Mr. Dent!” Someone rushes to his side, his left side, and he can’t see them. He swivels his neck to get a better look, but his right eye is still blurry and crusty from sleep.

“He’s awake!” the someone calls, and then more someones rush into the room, and Harvey just groans and groans, feeling like his head is on fire.

Then a needle is jabbed into his thigh, the pain starts to recede, and the fire slowly dies away.

He finds the strength in him to rub at his un-bandaged eye and push himself up into a sitting position. Someone maneuvers a glass of water to his hand, but he doesn’t drink.

The woman in front of him (and it is just one woman, and maybe there were never as many people as he’d originally thought) with the white coat and the clipboard has shoulder-length black hair that curls at the ends. She looks a little like his mother, in the few photos he’s seen of her from before she died.

“Glad to see that you’re awake, Mr. Dent,” she says briskly. “I’m Doctor Alvarez. What do you remember?”

He remembers…

He remembers a man. He remembers a cup. He remembers screams, and he remembers pain.

“I…” he says. His throat is as dry as sand.

“Drink,” Doctor Alvarez prompts.

Harvey lifts the water to his lips. The rim of the glass catches awkwardly on his bandages, and the liquid that doesn’t make it into his mouth dribbles down his front. He might be embarrassed about it if he weren’t so thirsty.

He drinks all he can drink, and with the water, his head clears completely.

“ **Maroni.** ”

Alvarez nods. “Yes, you were wounded by Salvatore Maroni. Do you remember the rest?”

He swallows. “Yeah. I remember,” he says sullenly.

“Good. You’ve been out for two days - the city will be very happy to hear that you’re awake again.”

“What happened?” he asks. “How did Maroni get the stuff? Where is he now?”

“Maroni was given the acid, concealed in a coffee cup, by a member of the GCPD - Officer Norman Tucker,” Alvarez explains. “It seems that he had been Maroni’s inside man on the force for a while prior. Officer Tucker was detained by the police immediately following the incident, and, last I heard, is awaiting trial.”

Harvey clenches his jaw, and instantly unclenches it. The novocaine had helped, but his mandible feels fragile - like it may shatter if he isn’t careful.

Alvarez turns a page on her clipboard. “Let’s discuss treatment and surgery options for you, Mr. Dent. If we can - “

“ **Doctor,** ” he snarls. “ **Where is Maroni now?** ”

Alvarez looks taken aback for the briefest moment, and then she composes herself once more. “Salvatore Maroni was kidnapped and murdered by rogue members of the Gotham Police Department. The suspects have yet to be identified, but they filmed everything.”

It isn’t justified. It isn’t fair. No matter what Maroni had done to him, he really -

**\- deserved what he fucking got. I only wish that I was the one who got to pull the trigger.**

But no. The law is the law, and even with raving lunatic mob bosses, there has to be a certain standard -

**But it shouldn’t apply in this case, and we damn well know it. Maroni was a monster, and he’s made _us_ a monster, too.**

There’s an option for surgery -

**Is there?**

“Mr. Dent.” Alvarez’s voice is quiet. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine,” Harvey says. “I’m fine.”

How many times has he said those words, and how many times have they been true? He wonders, distantly, when the last time it was that he took his medication…

“Can I…see? Can I see what he did to me?”

Alvarez wears a look of pity, and Harvey **hates it.** “You may remove your dressings, if you wish. Nurse Reed will be along in about half an hour to change them. But I warn you, Mr. Dent - the damage to your face is…severe.”

He nods. “I understand.”

“Would you like to be alone?”

“Please.”

Doctor Alvarez leaves the room, and shuts the door behind her.

It still takes Harvey a moment to pluck up the might, but he rips the heart pads from his chest and abdomen, lets the sound of the flatline fill his ears, and staggers shakily over to the other side of the hospital room, where a smudged mirror hangs on the wall.

He dispels the pins and needles from his out-of-practice legs, inhales deeply, and lifts his gaze.

The entire left side of his face is bandaged, but it’s the arm that Harvey goes for first. He slowly and steadily removes the wraps from his wrist and forearm, and when he realizes that it goes all the way up to his shoulder and clavicle, moves aside the sleeve and collar of his hospital gown to gain better access.

His arm is smattered with red. It covers most of the flesh, reaches to the back of his hand and crosses unevenly over his knuckles, snakes all the way up to where his inner bicep meets his pectoral muscle and amasses there, at his armpit. The skin is puckered, yet smooth, scabbed and bumpy in patches, oozing and pussy with foul-smelling discharge in others. Harvey pokes at the limb. It’s utterly numb. It’s all numb, _everything_ is numb.

He stares at himself for a moment in the glass, and then something inside him **breaks. He reaches up and tears the wraps from his face, no longer caring about safety, or suspense, or hurting himself. He can’t fare any worse than he already has, and the bandages fall away in tufts and chunks, the insides stained yellow and black, rusty brown here, fresh, scarlet red there. He rips and rips, hands no longer shaking, until there’s nothing left to rip anymore, and he looks.**

**His face is like his arm, but one thousand times worse. The flesh is practically extinct. His left nostril has been obliterated, a gaping and disgusting channel left quivering in its place. His cheek is all but gone, his lips are nonexistent, leaving gumless teeth bared in a permanent leer, and his hair, while mostly still full and intact, is white as a sheet, as ice, as a ghost, as bone.**

**The eye is the worst, though. The eye bulges, the lids long gone, out of its socket. It’s yellow, and red, and brown, and glazed, and he can’t see out of it, but _it_ can see out of _him._ It mocks him, wide and blind and manic, and it looks…it looks like the shining head of a coin.**

**Not just any coin. _The_ coin.**

“Oh, God,” he mutters, fingers hovering just above it all, daring to touch and never quite getting there. “Oh, _God._ ”

He gawks at it. He can’t stop looking. Whatever’s in the mirror isn’t him, it can’t be.

He stares at the thing in the mirror, and the thing stares back.

“Harvey?” Bruce’s voice is cautious. “Harv, what are you - “

The thing in the mirror turns, and Bruce’s eyes widen, his mouth gapes in horror.

“ _Harvey_ ,” he gasps. “ _Jesus Christ, Harvey._ ”

Harvey says something then. He says, “Help us, Bruce. **Help us.** ”

And then his knees buckle, his one good eye flutters shut, and he’s out before he hits the ground.

— — —

The first chance he gets, he busts open Arkham Asylum’s doors and turns its inhabitants loose.

If the people of Gotham won’t listen to Harv, then they’ll listen to _him._ At least, they’d _better,_ if they know what’s good for them.

“Waiting for your word,” Morris’s voice crackles through the radio.

Two-Face pauses a moment, and considers. He takes out the coin, shining and silver on one side, scratched and burned away on the other, poetically so.

Last chance.

The scarred face wins. He puts the coin back and lifts the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

“ **Do it,** ” he says. He doesn’t regret it.

Fate advised him on what to do. Two-Face is only carrying out the order for her, because _justice_ and _the law_ are fictional beings, and Fate is the only one you can trust, the only one that you _know_ is real and won’t deliver an unfair verdict.

The officers gun down the Arkham guards in the blink of an eye. Two-Face lets them do what they like, sends a group of them to the main prison block, and heads towards his target destination, the spot he’s had his sights set on from the beginning.

The maximum security ward has a laughably small amount of actual security standing between it and the outside world. The coin picks off three of them, but the last one goes free.

“ **Count yourself fortunate,** ” he calls after the lucky officer. She doesn’t seem to appreciate the sentiment.

A single shot at the keypad, and every door between him and his goal opens.

For an asylum, they’re not particularly enforced.

“Who’s there?” the man inside the single cell intones. “Bane? Ventriloquist? Or is it my _dear_ Harley Quinn?”

“ **Sorry to disappoint,** ” Two-Face sneers, stepping out of the shadows. “ **We’re someone completely different.** ”

The Joker’s ever-present grin widens. He cackles with glee. “ _Harvey Dent._ I must confess, I saw this day coming.” He chuckles maliciously. “Didn’t realize it would be so soon.”

“ **Harvey Dent is dead,** ” Two-Face growls.

Joker doesn’t seem fazed. “Long live Harvey Dent.” He leaps from his cot and stretches his arms above his head, cracking his back. “I’m guessing they don’t call you _Apollo_ anymore. Ha. Ha ha ha.”

“ **You know my name.** ”

Joker sighs. “That I do, my good sir Mr. Two-Face, but does it _really_ matter? I assume that you’re here to kill me, aren’t you? That’s your grand plan, isn’t it - to deliver legal justice in the criminal way?”

For just a glimmer of a moment, Harvey -

Two-Face solidly shakes his head. “ **No. We’re here to set you free.** ”

Joker raises an eyebrow. “‘We?’”

“ **Yes,** ” Two-Face says. “ **We’re here to set you free so you can rule the streets of Gotham once more. These people don’t know how good they have it. They don’t understand how _rogue_ all of you really are.**”

“And are you sure the Bat won’t stop you?” Joker taunts.

The half of Two-Face’s lip that still remains curls. “ **Let the Bat try. He won’t stand a chance against a full battalion of Arkham’s finest, will he?** ”

Joker shrugs. “You’d be surprised.” He approaches the glass. “What’s your endgame here, Apollo?”

Two-Face scowls. “ **To make them pay for what happened to me.** ”

The clown hums. “‘We,’ ‘me.’ You’ve really lost your sense of self, my good District Attorney.” He waves his hand. “But none of that matters to me. If chaos is what you want, then chaos is what you’ll get.”

“ **That’s all we needed to hear.** ”

Two-Face slams his good hand down onto the control panel, and the Joker’s cell doors slowly whisper open. Joker shimmies out energetically, as if he’s dancing.

His red smile brightens. “Well, not that it hasn’t been a ball talking to both of you,” Joker says. “But _I’ve_ got business elsewhere.”

His screams of laughter reverberate all throughout the room, even after he’s left it.

Two-Face stares at the inside of the blank cell for a minute. Its sturdy glass. Its unmade cot.

Then he reloads his gun, traces the outline of the coin lying in his pocket, and sets back to work.

By the time Batman arrives at the scene, Gotham’s former White Knight is long gone.

— — —

“DENT,” Commissioner Gordon’s voice booms through the bullhorn. “FINAL WARNING.”

“What do you want us to do, Boss?” one of his goons asks.

Two-Face flips the coin. “ **Don’t shoot any of the hostages,** ” he reports. “ **Just make them think you have.** ”

The goon nods and heads to the bank lobby with his pals. A few moments later, two shots ring out. The prisoners shriek loudly.

They’re lucky that fate was in their favor tonight. A different outcome on the flip, and then they’d _really_ have something to scream about.

Two-Face has been in charge for going on a year and a half, slowly building an empire to call his own, stretching across Gotham City. He hasn’t managed to get sent to Arkham yet, but he’s had his fair share of the Bat, like anyone else - and it irritates him, sometimes, because he’s only trying to make things _better;_ he isn’t the same as Joker or Penguin, he _knows_ this.

Well, most of the time, he knows. Other times…

Doesn’t matter, anyway.

Harv hasn’t seen the light of day except for those brief moments where he manages to shine through, for just a second, and mess something up in a big way, feel bad, cry like a little baby.

**Two-Face despises those moments, because Harvey Dent is weak, and that is something Two-Face cannot afford to be, under any circumstances.**

“He’ll be here any minute,” Catwoman muses as she fills a duffel bag with banknotes, most definitely taking more than her share’s worth - doesn’t matter, it can easily be cut out of one of the guys’ rewards, and if the guy doesn’t like that, he can talk to the coin. “We should really haul ass. Sooner rather than later.”

Two-Face snorts. “ **Let him come. We all three of us know that Bruce has always had a soft spot when it comes to people from his past. People like _us._** ”

Selina stills, pauses for the briefest moment, before continuing to move the money. “You know, then?”

“ **Of course we know,** ” he mutters, offended at the implication that he wouldn’t. “ **You’ve been friends with a guy for so long, it’s sort of hard to miss when he starts paradin’ around dressed as a flying rat.** ”

She sighs, sets down the bag, and turns to face him. “Harv, you still - “

He grabs her wrist. “ **That ain’t my name.** ”

She rolls her eyes, forcefully wrenches free of his grip. “ _Whatever._ Look, I know you still care about him. I know there’s still a small part of you, way deep down, that does this sort of shit on purpose because you _know_ it’ll attract him. You’re _trying_ to get him to come here, because you _miss_ him, you miss him like hell, and you don’t how to deal with that fact. And you need to be careful about it. One of these days, he’s going to catch you out. I wouldn’t want to be here for that.”

“ **What the fuck do you know,** ” he growls. “You don’t know. You don’t know.”

He tightens his jaw and shuts his good eye until Apollo, Gotham’s golden boy, goes back under.

Selina scowls, crossing her arms. “I know enough, Harvey.”

He opens his eye again. “ ** _That’s not -_** “

“Yes, it is.” She kisses him on the cheek, the scarred one, and frowns almost pitifully. “See you around,” Catwoman mutters, and she vaults out of the window, duffel bag full of money slung over her shoulder.

Two-Face stares at the spot where she’d stood and hates her - and hates Harvey, and hates Bruce, and for a fraction of a second, hates all of Gotham City.

Not a moment later, the glass ceiling in the lobby shatters, and his men start to scream. Two-Face straightens his tie and clears his divided thoughts.

“ **About time,** ” he mutters, grabs hold of the coin, and goes to find the Batman.

By the time he enters the front room, the hostages have escaped and half of his goons have already been knocked out - trust a couple of low-life criminal henchmen to not last longer than a minute fighting the Dark Knight.

“ **Jesus,** ” he remarks, prodding at an unconscious lackey with the toe of his shoe. “ **And you wonder why you all disappoint me.** ”

“Two-Face,” Batman thunders, clocking another minion out cold. “You’re completely surrounded. Give up now.”

“ **I’m not so sure about that,** ” Two-Face says. He grins and cocks his gun. “ **Wouldn’t want to leave all our hard-earned loot behind, now, would we?** ”

Batman dodges the last man standing’s punch and catches him in a headlock. “I don’t understand,” he says, shaking his head as he drops the motionless figure to the bank’s floor. “You pick a spot in the heart of town, only six blocks away from the precinct. You _know_ that Gordon will call me, and you _know_ that I’ll come when he does, but you do it anyway.” He straightens himself, stares across the floor directly at the man - _men_ \- in front of him. “You’re smarter than that, Harvey, I know you are. This is the third time I’ve had to come after you in two months. What’s this all really about?”

“ **Looks like it’s finally the end of the line for us,** ” Two-Face muses casually, carefully dodging the question. “ **You’re going to take me to Arkham, aren’t you, Brucie? Or would that really be the wisest choice? How do you know we won’t blab to the other inmates about the man behind the mask?** ”

Bruce says nothing. His body keeps stock still, not even the cape on his back fluttering. It’s hard to tell because of the cowl, but he looks at Two-Face with an expression of…sadness? Anger? Disbelief?

The coin probably knows. He considers flipping, but Bruce finally speaks.

“How long have you known?” he asks quietly, dropping the gravelly voice and slipping into a softer one that Harvey hasn’t heard in years. “Before you became Two-Face? After?”

“ **I had my suspicions all along,** ” Two-Face leers, stepping closer and closer. “ **You and Harv were friends, after all. He knew you pretty well.** ” He scoffs. “ **Maybe a little _too_ well.**”

“Why haven’t you told anyone yet? You could have me killed. It would be extremely easy.”

Two-Face shrugs. “ **Wouldn’t be all that fun, would it?** ”

Bruce steps closer this time. “Or you didn’t want to,” he says. “Because Harvey Esteban Dent is still in there. He’s still alive, and he’s crying out for help.”

Two-Face extends his arm quick as a flash, shoves the gun directly in Bruce’s face. Batman doesn’t even flinch. “ **Harvey Dent is dead. Gotham killed him. There’s nothing left of him, nothing but a body that’s no longer his.** ” His finger twitches on the trigger - it would be so simple to just _do_ it; and yet it wouldn’t be simple at all. “ **And I don’t work for anyone, Bruce Wayne. Not even myself. No one.** ” He pulls out the coin. “ **Except for chance. We do everything she tells us, because she’s always right. She’s both judge and jury - we’re only the executioner.** ”

“If that’s true,” Batman says. “Then you’d kill me right now if my flip came up bad.”

“ **Yes,** ” he sneers, and he tosses the coin into the air just to prove it.

“…Well? What’s it say?”

Two-Face smirks mirthlessly, staring at the unblemished silver surface. “ **You win, Bat. Go on, now.** ” He drops his gun, holds out his hands. “ **Take us to the madhouse.** ”

Bruce sighs, the entire weight of the world resonating in the sound. He pulls a pair of handcuffs out of his utility belt, locks them around Two-Face’s wrists.

“You won’t tell?” he asks quietly.

“I won’t tell,” Harv says, just as quietly, and then he smirks. “ **Where would the fun be in that?** ”

— — —

“I know you love him,” Lydia remarks. “You don’t have to lie to me, Harvey.”

Harvey lifts his head from the pillow and frowns, blinking slowly. “Who are you talking about?”

“Bruce,” Lydia says, as if it should be obvious. “I can tell. You’re different with him. You change whenever he walks in the room. You become…brighter. More alive, I think.”

Harvey sighs heavily with guilt. He presses his palms against his eyelids, makes dark spots dance across his vision and swallow him whole, so he can escape all of this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“For what?” Lydia asks. “You can’t help it.”

But she sounds bitter when she says it. And she deserves to feel that way, for what Harvey’s done to her.

“I’m sorry because I can’t feel for you the way you feel for me,” Harvey tells her. “I’m sorry if it came off like I was leading you on. I wasn’t trying to. Honestly.”

Lydia snorts. “Yeah, you did a good job of _that._ If it had just been casual sex, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but you took me out to _dinner,_ Harvey. You made it seem like you actually cared about me.”

“I _do,_ ” he says quickly. “I do care about you. I’m sorry about the dinner, it’s just…I felt bad, not treating you the way you deserved to be treated.”

Lydia shrugs, reaches out and twists Harvey’s kiss-curl slowly and windingly around her finger. “I know…I guess I just would have liked to have known that you didn’t want anything serious with me.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, leaning into her touch.

She takes her finger away, letting the kiss-curl bounce back feather-light against his forehead, and rests her hand on his cheek, instead. “How long have you been in love with him?”

He closes his eyes. “It’s hard to tell,” he mutters. “But long.”

And it’s true - he’s not sure if it was from the first day they met, or some other moment in their relationship with each other, but sometimes Harvey feels like he’s _always_ felt the way he does about Bruce.

“I thought as much.”

“Will you leave me?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

Lydia exhales. “Harv, I think I have to. It’s the best thing to do, for both of us. Otherwise, we’d just be miserable.”

He nods, swallows. “Right. You’re right. I’m _sorry,_ ” he says, one last time - and it’s probably just as ineffective as every time before.

“I know,” she whispers, leaning in close and pressing her lips against his cheekbone. “I know, honey.”

She’s only the first of many people Harvey sees to try and distract himself from his best friend. There are more women. Some men. Lawyers, secretaries, escorts, one-night stands he finds at the club - all types of people, everyone Gotham has to offer him. He throws himself at them, dates and sleeps with and breaks up with countless women, keeps things quiet and on the down-low with any men, so as not to raise suspicion. He begins to build up a reputation as a playboy, what with all the different people he uses to keep his focus away from Bruce.

But none of his friends and lovers, not a single one, achieve in actually doing so. And knowing this, and constantly seeing Bruce with Selina Kyle or someone else by his side, while Harvey has fling after fling but never really connects with anyone, makes him feel so -

Flat.

**Like a coin.**

— — —

_The Bat observes from a darkened rooftop as the doctors escort the two-faced man inside. This is the first time it has happened, and the Bat knows that it won’t be the last._

_The two-faced man does not see the Bat, but he grins in a way that makes the Bat think he knows he’s watching, anyway - the Bat used to love that grin, used to look forward to seeing it every day at school and afterward, and he loved the owner of it even more, like a friend, like a brother, like a life companion._

_But that man has been knocked down, and another has taken his place, a man full of hate and wrath and insanity - and the Bat…the Bat misses his best friend, and all the good he brought with him._

_The doors to the asylum bang shut, and the cloudy night feels even darker - Batman takes one last lingering glance at the prison that now holds one of the people he cares the most for, aims his grappling hook, and swings back to his cave._

_“Out a bit late tonight, aren’t we, Master Bruce?” Alfred greets. “How did it go?”_

_Bruce doesn’t meet his eye. “You saw the news, didn’t you?” he says sullenly, tearing off his mask and removing his suit. “You know what happened.”_

_“That I do, sir,” Alfred acknowledges, folding the suit into a bundle and tucking it under his arm to be taken to the laundry room. “But I thought you might like to talk about it.”_

_Bruce, left only in his boxers, crosses to the chair in front of his computer without a word. He keeps his jaw clenched as he presses the keys harshly, Alfred waiting patiently behind him. Bruce types and clicks and punches buttons with more force than necessary, saying nothing the whole time, until he finds what he’s looking for._

_“He knew, Alfred,” he says behind gritted teeth, staring unblinkingly at the screen. “He’s known all along. And he never - he never used that to his advantage. Not once did he ever use it against me, and he could have if he wanted to.”_

_Alfred is quiet a moment more before he coughs lightly. “Then there’s a chance he isn’t too far gone. He still cares for you, or at least, he does enough to keep your identity a secret. I doubt that many other of your nemeses would do the same.”_

_Bruce slams his fist down onto the desk’s titanium surface, hard. “He’s not my nemesis, Alfred, he’s - he’s - “_

_“I know, Master Bruce,” Alfred says pityingly. “I know what Harvey Dent means to you.”_

_Bruce shakes his head, swallows around the swelling lump in his throat. “How do we know that we’re right about him?” he asks helplessly. “How do we know that he’ll ever be able to come back - and how do we bring him back at all? It could be impossible, it very well might be impossible, and I - I don’t want to leave him like this, Alfred.”_

_Alfred places a gentle hand on his shoulder, and that’s all it takes for Bruce to crumble._

_“God,” he sobs. “He was my best friend, Alfred, he was my best friend. God. Harvey, Christ.”_

_“He still is, sir,” Alfred says. “There’s still hope for him. Don’t lose sight of that. There’s always hope.”_

_“It’s just - this city’s taken everything from me, Alfred,” Bruce says, burying his face in his hands. “My parents. Jason. Even Dick’s moved on. I’m just lonely. I have you, and I have Selina, and I love you both with everything I have, but - Goddamn it, I miss Harv. I should have realized what was going on with him. Made more of an effort to connect and talk to him about his problems, but I didn’t, and look where that’s landed him.”_

_“Don’t you dare take responsibility for that,” Alfred says, voice suddenly steely and austere. “You could have had no way of knowing what would happen. You were a good friend to him, Master Bruce, and you still are, whether or not Two-Face likes it. If you try and pin the blame onto yourself for anything like that again, you know I’ll have to box your ears for it.”_

_Bruce snorts, sniffles slightly. “You couldn’t do that if you tried, old man.”_

_“Who are you callin’ old, huh?” Alfred jokes, smacking Bruce’s shoulder. “I could stand a round against you. Perhaps I’d even win.”_

_Bruce chuckles, rubbing the spot where Alfred’s blow had landed (because he still can pack a punch, despite his age). “All right, all right, I get it. If you ever get bored, you can answer the Bat Signal for a change, yeah?”_

_Alfred straightens himself. “Maybe I will.” He smiles, and says, “It’s getting late, sir. You should come upstairs.”_

_“Yeah,” Bruce responds, turning back to the computer screen. “I’ll be up in a moment.”_

_“Right,” Alfred says. “That reminds me - there’s a young man who came by the Manor earlier today saying that he would like to schedule a personal meeting with you - a Mr. Timothy Drake. I’m not sure what it is that he wants to discuss, but he seemed quite adamant that he should see you. Shall I make an appointment?”_

_“Sure,” Bruce says distractedly. “Do that…”_

_Alfred sighs. “Come up soon, sir.”_

_He leaves, the close of the door echoing around the cavern._

_Bruce dries his eyes and looks up at the photo on the screen, the photo that Alfred had taken on graduation day: Bruce and Harvey both in their caps and gowns, holding their diplomas and grinning at the camera with their arms around each other - Bruce remembers it well, he remembers the beer he’d drank too much of the night before and the headache it gave him the next morning, and he remembers Harvey’s hug after Bruce had walked off the stage, long and warm and full of glee._

_“Jesus,” Bruce mumbles. “We’ve both changed a lot, haven’t we, Harv?”_

_He shuts the computer off, turns out the lights, and leaves the man who used to be the White Knight of Gotham behind, the man that is somehow still his friend, and the man who’s now in a madhouse because of him._

_Bruce doesn’t sleep well that night, but he doesn’t sleep well most nights, anyway._

_He doesn’t know it, but across town, Harvey doesn’t sleep well, either._

— — —

Selina sighs, loud and crackling into the mouthpiece of the receiver. “I don’t know. I don’t know when he’s coming, Harvey.”

It’s the first visiting hour Harvey has been allowed since he got here, and he’d hoped to catch a glimpse of Bruce - he should have known it was too good to be true.

“But you’ve talked to him about it, haven’t you?” Harvey persists, coming in closer to the glass. “You’ve brought it up? Tell me you’ve brought it up, Cat.”

“I have,” she says defiantly. “But he seems to find a handy subject change every time I mention it to him. He isn’t ready. He will be, eventually, but he’s not there yet. I’m sorry.”

He huffs. “Well. **I guess there’s nothing to be done about that, huh?** ”

“Harv, stay with me,” Selina coaxes, leaning nearer to him and lowering her sunglasses. “Come on.”

He shakes his head, screws his eyes shut tight and wills _him_ to go away. “ **Yeah.** Yeah. Thanks.”

She’s silent for a moment, something almost like pity worrying at the corners of her burgundy-colored lips, before she asks him, “How is it that he seems to come out less now that you’re locked up?”

Harvey shrugs, knowing she doesn’t mean Bruce. “Don’t know. Guess he’s just biding his time until he can seize control again. Once we’re - once _I’m_ back out.”

Selina quirks a dark eyebrow. “How can you be so sure you’ll make it out of here?”

He shrugs again. “Everyone else seems to.”

She hesitates.

“What?”

“Have you given any more thought to surgery?” she asks him. “It might help.”

Harvey sits back in his chair, breaking eye contact with her. “I don’t know if it will,” he says quietly, barely a whisper - he wonders if she can even hear him through the garbled telephone line. “What if I get it and _he’s_ still here? What if he just doesn’t go away? I’d never be the same. I wouldn’t - I _wouldn’t_ deserve it.”

Selina hums - the ears of a cat, and he always seems to forget it. “It wouldn’t hurt to try,” she intones matter-of-factly.

“What’s the point?” he asks dejectedly. “He’s always been a part of me. All it took was something to bring him out.”

Selina looks at him and says nothing. He says nothing back.

But eventually she exhales, checks her (likely too expensive for her salary) gold watch, and pushes her sunglasses back up her nose. “Look, I should get going. Bruce wants to meet me for dinner.”

“You’ll mention me again, right?” Harvey says desperately.

Selina starts to stand. “I’ll do my best, Harv, but I really think this is something he’s gotta come to terms with on his own time. I can’t make any promises as to when he’ll come to see you.”

“No,” Harvey says. “No, no, Selina - “

She shakes her head, glossy curls swaying. “I’m sorry. I really am. You keep it together in here, all right?”

The receiver falls from his hands. He slumps in his seat. “Forget it,” he mutters.

She frowns. “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

“ ** _I said forget it!_** ” Two-Face spits, rising from his chair, the cuffs pulling at their chains around his wrists, but he barely notices them, almost welcomes the cutting feeling of steel against skin. “ **We knew we couldn’t trust you. You want him all to _yourself,_ that’s it. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. Because that’s what _Harvey_ wants. Me?**” He grins savagely. “ **I just want what’s fair. Wayne doesn’t need to be a part of that. He’s nothing to me. _You’re_ nothing.**”

From the cubicle next to him, Crazy Quilt whistles appreciatively, rubbing his hands together with a sort of twisted glee as he watches Selina balk. Officers come to hold Two-Face back, but he pays them no mind.

“Don’t say that,” Selina says angrily, jaw clenching. “You don’t mean it, Harvey. I know you don’t.”

He growls. “ **You don’t know _jack_ about us,**” he sneers. “ **We’ll get out of this dump, and we’ll go right on back to schooling this shit-brained city and its shit-brained policies. And who the fuck is _Harvey?_** ” he adds, for good measure.

“Dent!” the officer holding his left arm barks. “Cool it!”

Selina glares, eyes full of fury. “I guess I _don’t_ know you,” she spits. “Forget about me talking to Bruce for you, _Two-Face._ It’s not gonna happen now, you fucked-up bastard.”

He cackles loudly. “ **Good! I don’t need that son of a bitch in my life. We don’t need _you,_ either. All we need’s the coin, and unbiased _chance,_ and then, _then_ we’re happy.**”

“Yeah,” Selina snarls. “Best of luck with getting your hands on that.”

She storms out without a glance back in his direction, and Two-Face just laughs and laughs.

The officers throw him in his cell with no dinner and cut the lights. He doesn’t care, pays no attention to his hunger or the empty rooms around him, their inhabitants dining in the asylum cafeteria. Instead, he laughs, and he keeps laughing, until the laughs turn to sobs, and his throat feels raw, and his hands shake, and someone, not Harvey and not Two-Face, but someone else entirely, seems to take charge for a second.

“ _I’m sorry,_ ” he whimpers to nobody, the cold concrete biting into his knees, his palms. “ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…_ ”

No one hears his words. Neither Harvey’s nor Two-Face’s, because there’s no one there to hear them.

Snuffling, he picks himself back up to his feet. He aches for the coin and its power, yearns for the feeling of its cool metal against his skin. He wishes, more than anything, that he could have the coin here with him.

Somehow, insanely, it comforts him.

He stumbles his way to the bed, changes his mind and redirects his course to the sink. The water is frigid over his hands (the price to pay for a cell next to Victor Fries), and he splashes it against his cheeks, washes the salt out of his eyes. It feels refreshing on his right side, but it stings a little on the left, and he winces, knowing that feeling will never truly go away.

He lifts his head to stare at the man trapped in the grimy and cracked mirror, the creature with the red and flayed flesh. He stares at the thing, and the thing stares back.

He sees Harvey Dent.

**He sees Two-Face.**

He sees them both, **blurred together,** impossible to tell where **one starts** and the other ends.

He sees neither of them. Nothing. Just a reflection of a man, a man with scars.

He wasn’t always like this.

**Author's Note:**

> harvey dent is a piece of garbage but he's MY piece of garbage
> 
> i talk about dc on my [tumblr](https://connorswhisk.tumblr.com) a lot, so stop by if you're into that or wanna ask for some writing - i'm all too happy to take requests :)


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